Explosion in market kills dozens in Pakistan

Updated 10:58 pm, Saturday, February 16, 2013

People gather after a bomb apparently targeting Shiite Muslims exploded in a crowded market in the western city of Quetta.

People gather after a bomb apparently targeting Shiite Muslims exploded in a crowded market in the western city of Quetta.

Photo: AFP / Getty Images

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Injured Pakistani Shiite Muslims are transported to a hospital on the back of a pickup truck following a bomb blast in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47 people including women and children and wounded more than 200 in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest on Saturday, police and officials said. AFP PHOTO/Banaras KHANBANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

Injured Pakistani Shiite Muslims are transported to a hospital on the back of a pickup truck following a bomb blast in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47

People gather after a bomb targeting Shiite Muslims exploded in busy market in Hazara town, an area dominated by Shiites on the outskirts of Quetta, on February 16, 2013. The bomb killed 63 people including women and children and wounded 180 in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest, police and officials said. AFP PHOTO/STRSTR/AFP/Getty Images

People gather after a bomb targeting Shiite Muslims exploded in busy market in Hazara town, an area dominated by Shiites on the outskirts of Quetta, on February 16, 2013. The bomb killed 63 people including

Pakistani medics and volunteers cover the lifeless bodies of a bomb blast victims, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. A bomb ripped through a crowded vegetable market in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in a southern Pakistani city Saturday, killing scores of people in a horrific attack on the country's minority Muslim sect. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Pakistani medics and volunteers cover the lifeless bodies of a bomb blast victims, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. A bomb ripped through a crowded vegetable market in a mostly Shiite

Smoke rises following a bomb explosion in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47 people including women and children and wounded more than 200 in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest on Saturday, police and officials said. AFP PHOTO/Banaras KHANBANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

Smoke rises following a bomb explosion in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47 people including women and children and wounded more than 200 in Pakistan's

Pakistani Shiite Muslims (L) mourn the death of relatives killed in a bomb blast, at a hospital in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47 people including women and children and wounded more than 200 in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest on Saturday, police and officials said. AFP PHOTO/Banaras KHANBANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistani Shiite Muslims (L) mourn the death of relatives killed in a bomb blast, at a hospital in Quetta on February 16, 2013. A remote-controlled bomb targeting Shiite Muslims killed 47 people including women

After the January attack, Ashraf flew to Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, to meet with Hazara families who protested in the streets for four days, sleeping beside the coffins of the bombing victims to protest the government's inaction.

That protest captured the sympathies of Pakistanis across the country and helped galvanize political opinion against a growing problem of sectarian attacks on minority Shiites in Quetta, Karachi and northwestern Pakistan.

Standing at the protest site, Ashraf announced the government was dissolving the provincial government and handing control to the provincial governor — a move Hazaras had hoped would stop the sectarian bloodshed.

But Saturday's attack shows that extremists can still operate with impunity in Baluchistan, Pakistan's largest but most sparsely populated province.

Baluchistan is plagued by several conflicts, including sectarian attacks on Shiites, a nationalist insurgency and ethnically motivated killings. It is also home to Afghan Taliban insurgents who use the province to carry out attacks inside Afghanistan.

The largest sectarian group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is widely believed to be based in the town of Mastung, south of Quetta. Few of its members have been captured or arrested.